1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automated apparatus for molding a disc-like rice food used in pizza rice, rice burgers, rice sandwiches or the like.
2. Related Art
Hitherto, it has been known that rice grain is molded into a disc-like shape, and is then used in, for example, pizza rice in which various toppings are set on the upper surface thereof, a rice burger in which a hamburger is sandwiched between two disk-like rice foods, or a rice sand in which various ingredients are sandwiched between two disc-like foods.
Conventionally, the above-mentioned disc-like foods have been formed through a manipulation work in which the formation of the rice food having a predetermined shape and a predetermined degree of hardness is difficult and time-consuming, and accordingly, there has been possibly raised a problem such that it is difficult to supply for great demand.
Thus, in order to satisfactorily supply for great demand, it has been proposed an automated apparatus for molding disc-like rice foods.
This molding apparatus has such a structure that a planer rice food having a predetermined shape (such as a substantially square shape) and conveyed by an intermittent feed belt conveyer is pressed by closing a pair of molding dies having semicircular shapes in which the dies are symmetrically curved outward, and accordingly, a circular shape rice food in a plan view, is obtained by these two molding dies. Then, a press is lowered to compress the same so as to obtain disc-like rice foods.
However, the above-mentioned molding apparatus has possibly raised such a problem that the efficiency of the molding is limited since the this apparatus cannot produce more than one of rice foods at a time, and accordingly, it does not seems to satisfactorily supply great demands of disc-like molded rice foods.